


tell me you love me (come back and haunt me)

by green_tea31



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bromance to Romance, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pre-Slash, Resolved Sexual Tension, Tags May Change, Temporary Character Death, The Author Regrets Everything, brief Mac/Desi, pre-macdalton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-03-09 06:36:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18911551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_tea31/pseuds/green_tea31
Summary: Mac has spent the last three years rebuilding his life, moving on from a loss he would have once found unimaginable, but these days, his is just one more terrible story among all the others after Thanos’ attack. He hasn’t found happiness, doesn’t think that will ever be possible again, but he’s found a measure of peace he would have thought impossible three years ago.(Chapter Three: After everything is said and done, Mac has his family back, gets hugged a lot, and finally figures out this thing between himself and Jack. It's about time, really.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just leave this here and run away while you ready the pitchforks? In which this author makes everything worse, so be warned - I killed a lot of characters, but then again - Endgame.
> 
> Self-betaed. No one to blame for mistakes but myself.
> 
> Title from "The Scientist" by Coldplay though I prefer the version by Willie Nelson. Jack would approve I think.

“Dr MacGyver?” Mac turns around. There’s a beautiful, blonde woman standing in front of him. If Mac hadn’t spent years among people a lot more dangerous than they looked, he likely wouldn’t have given her a second thought. As it is, there’s just something in the way she stands, the way she looks at Mac, that tells Mac not to underestimate her.

“Yes, I am. And you are?”

“My name is Sharon Carter,” she says, extending her hand for Mac to shake, “I used to work for the JCTC under Everett Ross, and I’m still working for the agency now. I’d like to talk to you for a moment, if you have the time.”

Mac looks at her hand, considering. The Joint Counter Terrorist Centre had been an ambiguous project, a global counter-terrorism agency established by the CIA, and drawing in the best and brightest from intelligence agencies all over the world.

Like most institutions it hadn’t done well after the snap, and had ultimately been disbanded in the year after.

Mac has spent the last three years rebuilding his life, moving on from a loss he would have once found unimaginable, but these days, his is just one more terrible story among all the others after Thanos’ attack. He hasn’t found happiness, doesn’t think that will ever be possible again, but he’s found a measure of peace he would have thought impossible three years ago.

Mac doesn’t want to talk to her, he’s left that life behind, but at the same time, there’s still some part of him left that can’t leave well enough alone.

He shakes her hand.

Mac leads the way to a small, independently run coffee shop close to Stark Industries’ New York Headquarters, run by a former Phoenix employee who had come to the city during Mac’s first year working for SI. He hadn’t been able to go inside for almost six months after realizing who owned the shop, but by now Mac’s come to appreciate the comfort of seeing a familiar face.

The reassurance that not everything had been destroyed, that life still went forward and people moved on.

Not Mac, though. He’s never quite been able to let go of the past.

“Dr MacGyver?” Mac smiles ruefully because if there’s one thing about him that hasn’t changed, it’s his tendency to get lost in his thoughts, and he can almost hear Jack’s snarky comment about geniuses and their brains if he concentrates hard enough. Mac shakes his head and forces his mind back to the present, ignoring the way the subtle movement presses the chain of Jack’s dog tags right against the skin above his heart.

“I’m sorry Agent Carter. I promise you have my attention now.” She smiles at him and tightens her fingers around the coffee she ordered earlier.

“I understand. You effectively left my kind of life behind after the Phoenix Foundation was disbanded, and me wanting to talk to you must be…”

“Unsettling?” He finishes and she nods. “It is – that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to listen to whatever you have to say. So…what is it that I can do for you?”

She looks at him almost apprehensively and bites her lip, a nervous habit Mac would have thought the agency had trained out of her, but then again, Mac himself has one or two habits he never quite got rid of, no matter how hard Thornton and Jack tried.  

“Two and a half years ago you left LA to come to New York and work for Stark Industries while finishing your degree at the same time…I want you to consider rebuilding the Phoenix Foundation and becoming its Director.”

…

_Later, he won’t remember the first few hours._

_Or rather – he will remember them, just not the way Mac remembers everything else: With almost startling clarity and a nearly photographic recall. He’s still in the War Room when the remnants of Phoenix’s tactical teams storm through the door with Hunter in the lead. Mac is frozen in front of the screen which still shows pictures of the arms dealer the team was supposed to hunt down somewhere in South America._

_Hunter approaches Mac like he’s afraid to shatter him if he makes one wrong move, walking towards him with measured steps, deliberately not looking at the ashes strewn across the floor._

_“Agent MacGyver…Mac.”_

_Mac finally emerges from his stupor and drops the half-shaped paperclip he’s been clutching hard enough, the wire nearly pierced his skin. His brain is stuck on the last few minutes, replaying the events over and over in his head. Riley at her laptop, her seat now empty, looking at Bozer rolling his eyes in response to something Jack said._

_Don’t think about Jack._

_Matty gently teasing him about something or other before staring in horror at the empty places in the room. The look of frightened realization in her eyes when her hands begin to…_

_When her hands begin to…_

_“It’s happening all over the world, Mac,” Hunter says and grabs Mac’s arm, steering him out of the room and past all that is left of Mac’s family as quickly as possible. “I have no idea what’s going on, but people are just – vanishing.” They come to stop in front of one of the conference rooms, and the other man puts a hand on the door before hesitating._

_“I was looking right at Alvarez when he disintegrated, I don’t know – dammit, I’m really sorry kid, but I need you right now. I need you to compartmentalize like you’ve never done before because you’re the only one with enough knowledge of the Phoenix, and the necessary clearance, to figure out what to do next.”_

_Mac swallows heavily, throat dry, and nods once. It’s easier right now, without the visual reminders of what happened, and he knows that Hunter is right. They need to assess and evaluate, find out what is happening, how many of their people are left, and decide what to do next._

_There’s a tiny, hopeful voice in his ear telling him not to give up, that there might be a way to bring them back, but Mac tries not to let that tiny voice become too loud because, well…_

_He’s rarely been so lucky._

…

“You want me to what?” Mac asks, disbelief heavy in his voice. Agent Carter grimaces and takes a sip of her coffee.

“I know it’s probably not what you expected, but _please_ – just hear me out?” She all but pleads with him and Mac reconsiders his initial reaction of abject rejection. It can’t hurt _wrong, it will, of course it will hurt_ to listen to what she has to say so he remains silent and gestures for her to continue.

“Alright – thank you. I know that the Phoenix Foundation fell victim to the aftermath of Thanos and that you lost a _lot_ of personnel – more than most intelligence agencies.”

Mac interrupts her. “Wasn’t the JCTC even worse off?” She nods in response.

“Yes we were, and that’s why it was disbanded as well, but…right now the world could really use the Foundation again – with a slightly different focus,” She finishes and looks at him expectantly.

Mac frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Before the Snap, the Phoenix Foundation was already involved in humanitarian efforts around the world, but your focus was still on global trouble shooting and espionage. What the world needs right now is an organization that can operate worldwide, deal with the kind of problems you once dealt with, _and_ help rebuild whatever needs rebuilding.”

And that’s…not something Mac had expected when she approached him. He knows what kind of problems half the population dying brought with it, had been involved in trying to bring some order back into the mess they were left with during the first few months, until their lack of agents and funding had ultimately made their efforts a futile exercise in frustration.

Two and a half years ago, Mac had been forced to give up, a failure which haunts him to this day, and now Agent Carter is handing him the opportunity to get involved again – to maybe find a way to make the world a little better.

_"Long as you’re out there, keepin’ the world safe hoss, I figure nothin’ can really be as bad as it looks."_

Jack would tell him to do it.

Mac leans forward in his seat. “Alright Agent Carter. I’m listening.”

…

_The world has gone to shit. Mac likes to imagine that that’s how Jack would put it, and it’s an effort to think about his partner these days without breaking down into a weeping, grieving mess._

_He and Hunter quickly figure out that they’re the Foundation’s most senior agents remaining. The Phoenix was hit hard by what people have come to call the Snap. Sixty seven percent loss of personnel; that’s pretty much a death sentence for an intelligence agency that didn’t have that many agents to begin with. They rally every agent and staff member in LA and spent the next few weeks desperately trying to get their people home – those that are left anyway. They’re hindered by the fact that most world governments essentially don’t exist anymore, and regions that used to be unstable at best have now become downright hostile._

_Neither of them go home except to get clothes and supplies. Mac remembers the first time they ventured out of the building and into the city, driving through all but abandoned streets that had been full with people and life just days earlier._

_Going to his house was bad enough, but there’s one stop he dreads with every fiber of his being._

_“You know, you don’t have to go up there alone,” Hunter tells him in the parking lot of Jack’s building, but Mac shakes his head._

_“Actually I do.” He takes a deep breath and opens the passenger door. “I don’t know…how long this will take.” The other man places a hand on Mac’s arm and squeezes reassuringly._

_“Take as long as you need, Mac. I’ll wait.” Mac smiles gratefully and begins the terrible pilgrimage up to the apartment, something he’s been avoiding for almost two weeks now._

_Jack’s apartment is…exactly as Jack left it on the day Thanos attacked. Mac walks into the place like he’s in a dream, expecting his partner to come greet him any moment now, with that crooked smile that Mac loves so much and a teasing glint in his eyes._

_He steps past the counter in the kitchen, fingers trailing over the slightly sticky surface. Mac can almost hear Jack cursing as he spills his coffee in his haste to get to work on time, imagines that there simply was no time left to clean up everything, and so Jack had probably planned on doing that when he got back – except, he never did._

_Come back, that is._

_He’s staring at the counter when something wet hits the surface and Mac raises his hand towards his face, wiping away tears he hadn’t even realized were there._

_It’s the first time Mac has cried since the Snap, and still he feels nothing but numbness and the deep certainty that this must be his punishment for a transgression he hadn’t even known he’d commited. Jack once promised to never leave him behind, yet here Mac is – standing in an apartment that might as well be nothing more than a mausoleum for the man who once lived there._

_Mac takes a few more steps, not bothering to hold back his tears anymore until he’s standing in front of what he came for. Taking the box out of the bookcase is almost too much because he still distinctly remembers the last time that box had come up. Mac grabs it and turns around, sitting down on a chair. He opens the box with shaking hands and removes the tags that once belonged to Jack’s dad when he realizes there’s a second set of tags underneath. Mac almost drops the box._

_His own tags tend to wander, sometimes he hangs them over his desk lamp or one of the various projects that clutter Mac’s space on any given day. He’s never really wondered where Jack keeps his, but this…_

_It makes sense._

_Mac’s hands grab the tags without his permission and he pulls them over his head almost unconsciously. For the first time since the Snap something in Mac just – breaks. He’s been keeping it together as long as he could, trying to keep the quickly sinking Foundation afloat, trying to bring their people home. Mac hasn’t even asked what happened to the War Room, if anyone…_

_If anyone cleaned up the ashes of the people he ~~loves~~ loved – of Jack._

_His fingers clutch the tags to his chest, and in the deepest corners of his heart, where Jack had made himself a place with a smile and a hug so many years ago, Mac finally admits the truth about his feelings for his partner to himself, while his tears slowly seep through the cardboard of the box he’s still holding in his lap._

…

“I can’t believe you’re going to abandon me after all we’ve been through together, kid,” Tony says in his usual, dramatic manner and Mac only grins at his old mentor in response. They’re in Mac’s office at SI, Tony on one of his rare visits to the city, now that he’s mostly retired from everything but family life.

“Come on, Tony. You were the one who told me to go for it just last week, and you even promised to help me, remember?” Mac discards another file that he definitely doesn’t need anymore and cackles as Tony sinks into the ancient couch Mac’s spent more than one night on.

“You told me, and I quote _if you’re going to save the world, you’re going to do it with style – other agencies will weep with envy at the technology you’re going to have_.”

Tony narrows his eyes at him. “You better believe it. You’re my mini-me after all. I didn’t drag you all the way to the East Coast to work for me only to lose you again to an organization with substandard technology.”

Mac chuckles. “So losing me to an organization with up-to-date technology is okay?” Tony shrugs and leans back, putting his feet onto the table in front of the couch which is overflowing with files and the gutted remains of failed engineering projects.

“If the technology is supplied by SI, sure.” He stares at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Mac, and there’s a reason why people call Tony Stark the greatest mind of his generation, even if Tony would probably beg to differ and shove Doctor Banner in front of him. Mac almost feels like a specimen about to be vivisected under his assessing gaze.

“But I meant what I said, Mac. I know I’m out of the protecting the world game these days, but that doesn’t mean I don’t support your plan. There’s still a lot of shit to deal with out there, and if anyone can deal with it – it’s you.”

Mac closes the file he’s been staring at and smiles at Tony, not quite sure if he deserves his support, but not much caring either way.

“I…thanks Tony. I don’t think I ever really thanked you for all that you did for me,” Mac begins somewhat awkwardly but Tony interrupts him. “And you don’t need to, kid. You thanked me by working for SI, by developing some truly incredible projects that have quite frankly made SI a lot of money and,” He grins at Mac and slumps back again, “Don’t forget all the babysitting. Seriously, I know how exhausting a mini Stark can be and Pepper and I are probably indebted to you and Happy for life.” Tony narrows his eyes at Mac. “Even if you did blow up the oven trying to make lasagna that one time.”

Mac grins. "I only blew it up a little bit and Morgan was nowhere near the kitchen at that time.” Mac may still be somewhat of hazard in the kitchen, but he does know not to let small children in the room when he’s trying to cook.

Tony chuckles. “True.”

They go back to their respective tasks, Mac sorting through his files, trying to determine what to keep and what he can throw away. (Tony hasn’t been able to convince him to switch to digital entirely, sometimes Mac just needs the reassuring weight of ink on paper in his hands.) Tony continues to watch him while simultaneously playing around with some of his own projects on the Starkpad he carries everywhere these days.

It’s a comfortable silence.

…

_Mac steps out of the building and into a light, drizzling rain, bitterly regretting the fact that he forgot his umbrella in his hotel room that morning. The streets of Washington D.C. greet him with their emptiness, the quiet eerie and haunting during what would once have been rush hour. He’s just finished the last of a series of gruelling hearings in front of various senate committees, and if Mac hadn’t slid back into his comfortably numb state after leaving LA, he would have asked himself how there were still enough bureaucrats left to needle him for answers when the American government, like nearly all governments, was still all but destroyed and only hanging on by its teeth._

_As it is, Mac only wants to go back to his hotel and sleep for a week. Thankfully his hotel is only a short walk from the place where the hearings were held, and he quickly grabs the tags he hasn’t been able to take off since walking out of Jack’s apartment for the last time, to reassure himself that they’re still there, before starting to walk, when a car stops in front of him at the curb._

_The door on the driver’s side opens, and while Mac hasn’t seen the man who emerges in years, he still recognizes him._

_“Happy, what?” Harold “Happy” Hogan, Tony Stark’s driver, bodyguard, and friend quickly opens the side door for him, impatiently motioning for Mac to get in aleady._

_“Come on, kid. It’s cold and Tony wants to speak with you.”_

_Mac gets into the car._

_“You look terrible,” Tony greets with his usual bluntness, but none of the teasing Mac had been accustomed to once upon a time. He looks at his old mentor and takes in the fact that Tony doesn’t look much better either. He’s gaunt, for once, thinner than Mac is used to, and lacking the muscle regular boxing had given him during Mac’s time at MIT. There are shadows in his eyes that Mac suspects have nothing to do with Tony’s physical appearance and everything with the events from half a year ago._

_He doesn’t ask what happened to the Avengers, what happened with Thanos because a) it doesn’t really matter, the people are dead anyway, and b) it still hurts too much for Mac to even think about it, so why would he speak about it when he doesn’t have to?_

_Tony narrows his eyes at him and offers Mac a bag with what he’s pretty sure are dried blueberries. Mac shakes his head._

_“What are you doing here? In DC I mean?” Mac asks because the last he heard Tony was still recovering from the battle in a hospital in an undisclosed location, or that’s how the remaining media outlets tell it at least. Tony pops the last few blueberries into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully before putting the empty bag down._

_“I want you to come work for me," He says to Mac and leans back in his seat._

_“Tony…”_

_“And before you say no, hear me out, kid. I did some digging and I can’t tell you how sorry I am about the losses you suffered. I know that’s not much comfort right now, but I really am – sorry.”_

_“It wasn’t exactly you fault.”_

_Tony chuckles without humour. “We just have to agree to disagree on that kid. Look – you’re essentially alone right now. I mean, your old man might still be alive and kicking, but even I wasn’t able to find much on him in all this chaos…” Mac interrupts him._

_“I did – I mean I found him.”_

_Tony stares for a few seconds before coming back to himself. “I’m sorry, but what?”_

_It’s Mac’s turn for a meaningless laugh. “I found him in the aftermath. Turns out he was my boss – overseeing all operations of the Phoenix Foundation.” He shrugs, trying to pretend that revelation hadn’t shaken him to the core. “I guess he never thought it relevant to tell me that he was that close all those years, even when I started looking for him.”_

_Tony leans forward and rubs over his face in frustration. “I…don’t even know what to say right now – and I thought my Dad was a piece of work.” Mac starts chuckling again and this time Tony joins him. Most of the times, it’s either laughing or crying in this new world of theirs and Mac hasn’t had much to laugh about lately, so he’s silently grateful for this moment of levity, even if it’s because he’s bonding with his old mentor over their shitty Dads._

_“So – I’m guessing he didn’t make it then?” Tony asks once they’ve calmed down again. Mac shakes his head in response._

_“Alright, where was I?”_

_“You want me to work for you,” Mac reminds him._

_“Right. Stark Industries lost a significant portion of its engineers and we’ve been on a recruiting drive and well, you were the first person that came to my mind. Come work for me. I’m even going to hound the guys over at MIT so you can finish your degree at the same time. I know you always declined my offers in the past, but I’d be grateful if you at least thought about this for a while before saying no this time.”_

_The car comes to a halt in front of Mac’s hotel and he looks outside. The rain has lightened up, there’s sunlight hitting the huge glass front and the afternoon promises to be much nicer than the morning was. Mac thinks about the empty hotel room waiting for him, about the messages he sent out into the world to people long dead._

_He makes a decision._

…

Mac is sitting in the oldest Ford Mustang he’s ever had the displeasure of experiencing, possibly only held together by duct tape and gum, and he’s well-aware of the hypocrisy in that statement given his improvising habit. Still, he’s more than a little wary of actually making it to his destination and possibly being stranded in the ass-end of nowhere.

_Looks like the devil’s backyard, kid._

“I know it’s not the kind of car you’d expect out here, but it’s pretty much all I’ve got left after the Snap,” The owner of said car all but screams at him over the speakers blasting "Best of Queen" on repeat. Mac was very hard-pressed not to make a remark about all music in cars turning into Queen at some point, never mind that his current companion likely wouldn’t have gotten the joke anyway.

_Jack would have because Jack loved to read, and it was him who had gotten Mac the book as a birthday present in the first place. There’s two things he’d taken from Jack’s apartment that day – the cigar box with all its contents and Jack’s favourite edition of Beowulf._

“You're sure it’s up to getting us to the place?” Mac asks – yells in return, but they’re already slowing down and the scattered trees make way for the small airfield where Mac hopes to find someone willing to help him rebuild the Phoenix Foundation. He’d known, after accepting Agent Carter’s offer, that he would have to find a lot of qualified operatives in a world that already lacked pretty much everything it needed, but the most important thing was finding someone who would work as his – well, partner, no matter how much it hurt to thinks of anyone else but Jack in that position.

Mac had contacted Sam first who survived, but was swamped with helping to rebuild what was left of Australia’s intelligence network. He’d gotten the promise of cooperation once they were up and running, and while that was more than he could have hoped for, it still left him with his initial problem of finding someone to take over the tactical side of things.

So Mac had gotten creative. He’d braved his fear and went back to LA for the first time in years where he started digging through the files in the closed-off Phoenix building. They’d actually removed everything after disbanding, but the first thing Mac had done when being confronted with his new role, was to requisition that all files and equipment that hadn’t been destroyed be returned to the former HQ, guarded by a handful of security guards drawn from the surviving tac team members who were eager to return to work once they set up again.

It was in these files that Mac hit a veritable treasure trove. Before the Snap, most of the Phoenix’s data had been stored electronically, guarded and maintained by Riley and her army of minions.

_“Don’t call them that, Jack. They’re fully qualified programmers, network specialists, and data analysts, not little yellow men.”_

_“But they like it Matty. I think they even got t-shirts and weekly meetings of the “All hail Riley Davis” club.”_

Some operatives however (Jack) had still kept physical copies of important things, not trusting the system not to lose their files at some point, and Jack had kept his shortlist of people to recruit neatly stacked in a file cabinet in the office he almost never used. Mac took one look at the files, decided to start at the top and well…

That brings him back to the airfield.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” his companions says before throwing him a look that very clearly doubts Mac’s sanity and self-preservation skills.

“Don’t take anything she says to heart, girl’s lost as much as any of us – and don’t let her shoot you.”

“Shoot – wait.” But he’s already gone, the Ford Mustang still doing its best to go out with a bang instead of a whimper. Mac sighs and turns around, making his way to the building that holds the most promise of actually having a living being inside.

He finds her behind a desk, in what a sign at the door proudly proclaims as office, but is really more of a closet with furniture. She’s leaning back, baseball cap drawn into her face, and if Mac hadn’t spent a significant portion of his life around Special Forces soldiers, he would have likely thought that she’s sleeping.

“Desiree Nguyen?”

The woman in the chair removes her cap and fixes him with a glare.

“Who wants to know?”

Mac takes a deep breath and steels himself for what will either be cut short and possibly end in blood and tears, or promises to be a rather lengthy conversation.

…

“I told you not to light the fuse too early,” Mac teases over the com, watching through Desi’s body cam as she takes out a guard and directs her team towards the exit. Mac is Phoenix-bound more often than not these days with his responsibilities as Director keeping him in the country, and so is Desi, usually, as current head of field operations, but this time she already knew the guy they were after, so into the field she went.

Mac is technically Oversight and Desi filled Matty’s position. Those distinctions, however, have become blurred in this new brave world of theirs to the point where they don’t really matter anymore.

They do whatever needs doing.

He and Desi spent the first few months warily circling each other. Mac is still surprised he managed to convince her to come work for him in the first place, but he’s very glad that he did. He hasn’t just found a partner and friend, he’s found someone he can mourn with, someone who lost as much as he had five years ago.

There’s an initial spark of attraction between the two of them, something that Mac thinks could have developed into more in different circumstances, in a world where they weren’t bound together so tightly by mutual grief and loss.

They have sex exactly once, six months after starting their arduous task of rebuilding the Phoenix into the kind of international organization that could maybe one day even rival the departed SHIELD – only with less Hydra – they fall into bed together and wake up to the realization that, while they enjoyed themselves – it's not ever going to happen again.

Mac wakes up to the sun shining into his bedroom, his head slightly woozy from the one too many beers he’s had the evening before, and the place next to him cold and empty. He finds Desi in the kitchen, staring into a cup of coffee, frowning when she notices him.

“Look Mac…”

“I know. We both needed last night, but…”

“This isn’t going to be a grand romance,” Desi finishes for him and Mac smiles at her because he loves her – he isn’t _in love_ with her, that much he knows, but he still feels more for her than he would for a sister. They’ve come to a place that he hadn’t thought he’d ever reach with another person again, and that counts for more than all the love affairs in the world.

Desi takes a second cup and pours the rest of the coffee into it, handing it to him as they step out onto the deck into the morning sun.

She’s somehow managed to find his oldest surviving shirt to wear, and he smiles at how much he doesn’t mind her wearing it, then sits down next to her by the unlit fire pit.

“You know,” he begins while Desi makes herself comfortable on his shoulder, yawning into her coffee, “You could just move in instead of crashing at the Phoenix almost every night,” Mac says, hoping that she will say yes. He didn’t think he’d ever be ready to have someone else in Bozer’s space, but he wouldn’t mind having Desi there.

She snuggles closer, chasing his warmth in the morning chill and Mac wraps an arm around her.

“And have this view whenever I want? You know what, boy genius? – I might just do that.”

…

It’s been five years, three weeks, two days, four hours, and roughly seven minutes after Mac suffered the greatest loss of his life when Tony calls him on the phone.

“Look, kid – this might be a long shot, and I don’t even know if it’s going to work, if it _can_ work, but…we need to talk.”  

                                          

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this was supposed to be a oneshot, but then I would likely have had to change my name and move to another country. Also, it doesn't quite feel finished to me, so there's going to be an epilogue of sorts. That one will have all the macdalton feels, too. And yes, I know Sharon Carter was supposed to have died in the Snap, but I'm of the firm opinion that she deserved better.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac helps Tony work on the time machine, tries to help Desi with her love life, and bonds with Captain America over their respective losses - not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *glances at chapter count* yeah - that didn't work out, did it?
> 
> Bet you weren't expecting this chapter already, but I'm still working out my Endgame feelings, so this basically writes itself right now. Next one should be the promised macdalton-heavy epilogue, though. Fingers crossed.  
> There's a pairing in here that I didn't really expect to write, hope you don't mind. Some implied Steve/Bucky, but you can probaby ignore it if that's not your jam. Quick note: This is not supposed to be any kind of Endgame fix-it. I'm probably going to leave it purposely vague, so you can read it however you want. 
> 
> Self-betaed, as always. Barely-betaed in case you're reading this on Sunday because it's late, I'm tired and will be buried in class work again starting tomorrow, but I wanted to get this out before then. I'm going to go over it with a fine-toothed comb sometime next week. Until then - enjoy my failing grasp on punctuation.

“That’s…I don’t even know what to say right now.” Desi looks at Mac, wide-eyed, while leaning back against one of the tables in Mac’s favourite lab. Mac tells himself there’s no reason to panic, even if his reaction was pretty much the same when Tony first told him about the Avenger’s hair-brained scheme.

Mac chuckles. “It’s insane, that’s what it is.” He rubs a hand through his hair and reminds himself to get a haircut before flying to the East Coast. “Look, Desi – You’re the only one, aside from the Avengers, myself, and whoever Tony told, who knows about this, and I need you to hold up the fort for me in LA until….well, I don’t know. Maybe this won’t blow up in all of our faces?”

Desi is still staring at him like he’s insane and yeah, he may be, to even entertain the idea that this…

That this will work.

“Time travel,” Desi whispers almost reverently before a slow grin spreads across her face. “I mean – why not? It’s not like the world went crazy a few years ago anyway.”

“Will you be alright with this?” Mac asks because, while Mac has lost his found family and the person who meant more to him than anyone else, Desi lost family, too. Actual, blood related family she loved and never really talks about, except when they’re both too drunk to keep a hold of their secrets.

She smiles at him, eyes going soft in a way she reserves for very few people, and Mac still feels honoured by the fact that he’s included in that count.

“I’ll be fine, Mac. You do what you have to do…Mac, if this works…,” Desi trails off and Mac knows what she’s thinking.

If this works they might be getting them back.

He grips Jack’s tags, tightly enough the edge cuts into his skin, painfully reminding him of what they lost – reminding him of what’s at stake here.

“Uh, guys?” Jill’s voice interrupts their little get-together. She hesitates at the door for a moment before walking into the lab. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important? Also – is it supposed to be this dark in here?”

Mac smiles. “It’s not, but we’re pretty much finished here anyway,” he tells her, throwing Desi a pointed look. His partner is decidedly not looking at Jill and Mac resist the urge to shake his head in despair.

Turns out, Desiree Nguyen is a suave all-around badass unless she’s crushing on someone – then she becomes an awkward, stammering mess and prefers to deal with it by not dealing with it.

“Oh, good. I’m glad then. I have the finished results from the mission in Nicaragua if you wanted to have a look at them?” Jill asks. Mac narrows his eyes at the way she’s standing, turned away from Desi, but still throwing the occasional not-so-subtle glance in the other woman’s direction.

“You know what? I actually have a phone call to make. Why don’t you show the results to Desi?” Mac gets up from his chair and grins at the two women, striding out of the lab with renewed confidence.

He can feel Desi’s glare all the way to the elevator.

…

The Avengers’ compound is a wide, sprawling thing, full of the kind of hyper modern technology Stark Industries excels at. Mac isn’t quite sure what he’s doing here. It’s true that his speciality kind of does make him qualified to work on this, but with Tony here, he’s not really _needed_.

He gets out of the car, Happy patiently waiting behind the wheel for Mac to get his shit together, and is neatly caught in a crushing hug by the waiting Tony.

Maybe he’s here more for Tony than the success of the time machine – and he still can’t believe that’s an actual thing now.

A time machine.

Jack would get such a kick out of this.

“Hey kid. Come to join our little circle of insanity?” Tony asks teasingly. Mac has just enough time to grab his bag before Tony wraps an arm around Mac’s shoulders and all but drags him into the building. The inside turns out to be as sleek as the outside. Tony leads the way into a large hall-like space, empty aside from the equipment and raw materials necessary to build the time machine, and a tall, lonely man, seemingly staring into nothing. He turns around as soon as Tony clears his throat and Mac fights the urge to hide behind his mentor.

_“Captain freakin’ America. What I wouldn’t give to meet him one day, kid.”_

“Hey, Cap. I got us some help building this thing – besides the talking Racoon, I mean. Meet Angus MacGyver. Mac, meet Steve Rogers.” Tony grins at them proudly and Mac gets the feeling that he missed some kind of point that Tony was trying to make. He doesn’t try to figure it out because that way lies madness, and settles for shaking Captain America’s hand instead.

“Captain – it’s an honour to meet you.”

“Call me Steve, please. If you’re here to help us with this piece of insanity I think you more than earned the right,” ~~Captain~~ _Steve_ tells him and Mac has to fight the very out-of-character urge not to start giggling nervously. There’s a part of him looking at the situation from the outside, calm and rational, telling his inner fanboy that he’s a goddamn adult, Director of an internationally operating intelligence agency, and not a seven year old, anxiously awaiting the release of the next Captain America issue. Then there’s his inner fanboy, gazing star-struck at one of his earliest heroes, unable to believe that this is his life now.

Mac isn’t quite sure which side is going to win out yet.

“I’m not sure how much help I’m actually going to be, but I’ll do my best,” Mac says while Tony rolls his eyes at him.

“You’re going to help me by lending me your hands to build this thing and your ability to occasionally make me eat and sleep to keep Pepper from invading the compound before we’re finished.” Tony slaps Mac on the back and grins at both of them.

“You two should really have a talk sometime. You’d be surprised how much you two have in common.” Mac ignores the pleasant flutter he feels getting that compliment, and tries to think of something to say that doesn’t make him sound like an idiot, when the door to the hall slams open and a racoon strides into the room.

Mac resists the urge to pinch himself.

“Yo, Stark. Who’s the kid?” The racoon asks Tony and Mac comes to the conclusions that yes, indeed – this is his life now.

…

Mac yawns and leans back, trying not to fall asleep while waiting for Tony’s system to finish the latest calculations. They’re roughly halfway into finishing the platform that is supposed to send the Avengers back in time, and ultimately fix what Thanos broke five years ago. His initial predictions haven’t proven to be quite as correct as he thought they would. Tony could have easily build this entire thing without Mac, but it’s also easier with one more pair of eyes who understands the theory behind it all – besides Tony himself and Doctor Banner.

Mac mostly keeps to himself, though. He doesn’t want to intrude on the delicate peace that the two fractions of the Avengers seem to cling to with almost desperate hope, and there’s a part of him that doesn’t quite trust it all, doesn’t trust the implicit promise of their endeavour – the promise of their _success_. Mac does the work, banters with Tony and Rocket, spends quiet mornings running calculations, and talks to Desi via satellite link at least twice a week, ignoring Tony’s pointed looks when he doesn’t join the rest of them for whatever counts as team bonding around here.

Mac’s not a superhero. He’s just a very smart guy who once managed to impress Tony Stark by blowing up half a lab at MIT with a few selected chemicals and a supersized bottle of household cleaner.  

_“You gotta talk to people, hoss. Just ‘cause I’m not there anymore, doesn’t mean you can avoid socializing forever.”_

He’s still not even sure this will _work_. There’s so much than can go wrong, so many details they could have overlooked that Mac has the urge to panic just _thinking_ about it. He won’t actually be there for the event; Mac needs to be back in LA by then, waiting in the War Room and desperately praying for the Avengers to succeed – there’s just _no_ way he’s isn’t going to be right there where the team died five years ago if this actually works.

“There you are,” Steve Rogers says, walking into the room where Tony installed the computer that would make administrators of the most sophisticated labs around the world weep with envy. He’s balancing something in his hands, something that smells delicious, and Mac can feel his mouth watering – he hasn’t actually eaten much that day.

Steve puts a plate down in front of him, full of steaming, culinary goodness and smiles at Mac.

“Bruce cooked. I’m still not sure _how_ he does that in a kitchen that definitely wasn’t designed for someone of his size, but it’s delicious. Since you’ve been holed up here all day, I thought you could use something to eat.”

“I…thank you. And yeah – I could really eat right about now,” Mac thanks him and pulls the plate close, grabbing the knife and fork Steve put down next to it.

“I know how it feels, you know?” Steve tells him while grabbing a chair and sitting down next to Mac.

Mac freezes. “How what feels?” Steve smiles gently and nudges the plate closer to Mac, motioning for him to start eating.

“Come on, I didn’t bring this all the way just so you’d watch while it gets cold,” he teases and Mac takes a hesitant bite.

It’s delicious.

“I mean the feeling of being out of place – of not quite fitting in,” Steve continues. Mac swallows, the food heavy in his stomach.

“Look,” Steve leans forward, “I don’t think you realize what you being here means to Tony. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really know him anymore, and I’m trying to change that, but I think you give him an anchor, a way to focus – to remind himself _why_ he’s doing this.”

Mac puts down the fork, suddenly not really hungry anymore. “I…” He isn’t actually sure what to say, can’t think of a single thing that would be adequate.

Steve chuckles wryly. “I’m making such a mess of this, aren’t I? Here I’m trying to tell you to come have dinner with the team and I end up rambling about Tony.” He shakes his head, seemingly amused at his own inability to convey what he actually means.

“Man, Bucky would just laugh at me right now…,” Steve trails off and there’s something painful in his eyes, something that reminds Mac of the times he’s been talking to the imaginary voice in his head.

“Jack would, too,” slips out before Mac can tell his brain to shut up, and Steve looks up at him, clearly interested now.

“Jack? He asks hesitantly. Mac closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, telling himself that it doesn’t matter. Jack’s been gone for five years now, he _can_ talk about this without bursting into tears.

_“Talk to him, kid. Don’t make me come back and haunt your ass.”_

“He was…my partner,” Mac begins, trying, and failing, to think of a way to put his relationship with Jack into words. “I’d known him for almost eight years when…” He trails off, staring into the distance and misses the sympathetic glance Steve throws his way.

“He was your Bucky,” Steve tells him, voice gentle and entirely without teasing, and Mac almost leaves it at that, but…

If he can’t be honest with himself.

Also, he doesn’t think Steve Rogers has a homophobic bone in his body, so…

“I was in love with him,” Mac blurts out before he can rethink his decision, “Still _am_ in love with him, actually.” Mac chances a glance at Steve and stops short at the wistful smile on his face.

“Like I said, he was – _is_ your Bucky.” Mac swallows heavily. When Tony said that he and Steve had a lot in common, he wasn’t really expecting this.

“Come on,” Steve begins, nudging the plate closer to Mac again. Mac is surprised when he actually feels like he could eat the rest. “Eat up and then come and have a drink with us. We’re about to change the world for better or worse, I think you’ve earned yourself a break.”

Mac smiles hesitantly and picks up the fork. Steve leans back in his seat, not saying anything, but watching in approval while Mac finishes his dinner.

The silence is comfortable.

…

“I have a _date_ , Mac. This is not the time to laugh at me,” Desi grumbles through the camera on her laptop while Mac snickers to himself.

“You’ve been on dates before, Desi. I distinctly remember helping you get rid of the evidence after you destroyed that one guys’ car.” She glares at him, in between going through the clothes haphazardly strewn across her bed. It’s still a trip, seeing the room that used to be Bozer’s, but with Desi’s rather eclectic approach to interior decoration. She grabs a black dress from the bed and holds it towards the camera. Mac shakes his head.

“Dammit. I _know_ I’ve been on dates, Mac, but those were people I didn’t really know. They didn’t _matter_ – not the way Jill does.” Mac smiles, even though Desi can’t really see it, half-buried in her clothes as she is. He knows what she means. Jill had come back to the Phoenix almost immediately after Mac asked her to.

_“I’ve been stuck on this farm with five overprotective brothers for almost four years now and I’m working in a library, Mac, a goddamn library. I love libraries, don’t get me wrong, but that doesn’t mean I want to work in one for the rest of my life. And did I mention the brothers who won’t let me out of their sight? I’m ready to pay you to take me back, Mac. I really, really am."  
_

For the first few weeks neither woman had really taken notice of the other, too busy with rebuilding their respective departments, but after a while, when operations had started running again, and they’d started working together more often, something had shifted. Desi started to smile more often, not the teasing grin she reserved for Mac, but a real smile whenever she and Jill were working together on something.

Mac was a silent spectator while Desi slowly started trusting another person besides himself, started relying on someone else. For all that they lost so much, if Jill and Desi manage to find some measure of happiness with each other, there’s at least one good thing that came out of the mess.

If Desi ever makes it to their first date without shooting something.

“Why do you think I’m any good at giving you advice on what to wear anyway?” Mac asks, nodding at the next dress she holds up, a red, strappy number that would show off her tattoos nicely.

Desi frowns at him. “You’re good at makeup.” Mac rolls his eyes.

“Yes, because _Bozer_ taught me.”

“Well, he might have taught you how to dress, too. Although, when I think of what you regularly wear – never mind.” She shakes her head and grabs the red dress.

“Hey – I dress just fine, thank you very much,” Mac protests half-heartedly.

“Keep telling yourself that. I gotta go. I’m late as it is. Talk to you next week?”

Mac nods. “Next week. Have fun on your date.”

…

Mac has a recurring dream, nightmare really, ever since the Snap. He’s at the Phoenix, desperately trying to find his partner. The building is empty – no, _deserted_. He can see broken mugs in the hallways, spilled coffee in between. Files dropped seemingly at random, the way it looked right after. Except, this time there’s no one left, not even Hunter coming to get him and Mac can’t find Jack until he does. It’s not the Jack he knows, this one is a sadder version of his partner, wearing Army fatigues, bag slung over his shoulder, a regretful smile on his face.

_“Goodbye, Mac.”_

Mac never reaches Jack before he vanishes.

_There’s a theory that our universe is just one of many in an array of multiverses, each one breaking off from another universe when someone makes a different choice. Some universes are kinder than others, some are much worse, though it all depends on your interpretation, doesn’t it?_

Mac wakes up.

…

“Do you think this will work?” Mac asks Tony, taking a sip from the undoubtedly expensive wine Tony had brought with him.

They’re pretty much finished now, only some last recalibrations left. Tony buys dinner, catered by some insanely expensive restaurant, it’s delicious of course, to celebrate the fact that in two days the Avengers are going to try and save half of all living beings in the universe. Even Pepper, Morgan, and Happy make their way to the compound for what could very well be their last dinner together.

“Uncle Mac,” Morgan yells excitedly while running towards him. She throws herself into his arms with all the energy of a five year old who’s been cooped up in a car for too long. Mac embraces her tightly, still awed by the trust this tiny human being has bestowed upon him.

“Hey, and what about your Dad – don’t I get a hug?” Tony teases and Morgan rolls her eyes, not letting go of Mac, the wisdom of five year olds heavy in her voice when she speaks next.

“Da- _ad._ I haven’t seen Mac in _ages_.” She grins at her father who opens his arms for her, waggling his eyebrows. Morgan snorts and throws herself into Tony’s arms.

“That’s more like it. I love you three-thousand little lady, never forget that.”

Mac feels something constrict in his chest and prays that whatever happens, this won’t be the last time Morgan gets to hug her father.

They celebrate deep into the night, bound by a common goal, the sins of the past not quite forgotten, but long-since forgiven in light of what’s to come. Morgan nods off on Tony’s shoulder, for once not beholden to any kind of sensible bed time. When it’s clear that she’s not going to wake up again, Pepper takes her in for the night, yawning after pressing a kiss to her husband’s cheek.

It’s close to sunrise and Mac and Tony are the only ones left. Mac is not-quite drunk anymore, but also still not sober enough to end the night.

Tony snorts. “Work? Of course this will _work_ …the math is solid, the theory works. I’m not afraid that this won’t work.”

Mac contemplates his old mentor for a moment. “What are you afraid of then?” He asks and can almost see the cogs in Tony’s brain coming to a grinding halt.

“Touché, kid. Should have known you’d see through that.” Tony puts down his glass – it’s just water. He once told Mac during an all-nighter they pulled to finish a project before the board-approved deadline that he stopped drinking the moment Pepper told him she was pregnant. It wasn’t because he really had a _problem_ anymore – his alcohol intake had always been much lower than the tabloids liked to pretend, but Tony refused to force his child to relive his own childhood, with a father who was absent at best and downright abusive at worst, and who always smelled vaguely of expensive liquor.

“You know…I’ve tried so _hard_ to make the world a better place, but – I only ever seem to make it worse.” He slumps back and looks at Mac, the weight of the world on his shoulders and something dark in his eyes.

“What if I fuck this up, too? I can’t fuck this up, kid. There’s too much at stake this time,” Tony says and throws a glance in the direction of the door where Pepper left earlier, carrying their sleepy daughter out of the building. “I can’t lose them.”

“You won’t – _we_ won’t. Not this time, Tony. I promise you that,” Steve says, stepping into their line of sight. He smiles sheepishly and sits down at the table, taking the seat he’d abandoned hours earlier.

“Sorry, I…I couldn’t sleep. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, really, but…” He looks at Tony, eyes dark in the dim light of the almost completely burned-down candles. “I know you might not believe me, likely don’t trust me anymore, but I promise you I will do everything in my power to make sure that what we’re about to do is going to work, and that we will _all_ make it back from out little time heist.”

Tony grins at him and Mac can’t help but smile, too.

“Well, how about that. Welcome back, Captain.”

It’s going to work.

…

“All non-essential personnel is gone. I’ve told them we were running drills today and if anyone comes back before tomorrow, they’re volunteering themselves for a sparring session with me,” Desi says while they’re walking through the abandoned halls of the Phoenix Foundation, making their way to the War Room. “Hunter and his team are standing by, but they don’t know what we’re actually waiting for.” They stop before the glass walls, both hesitant to make that final step.

“Mac…”

“I know.”

They know that today is the day the Avengers are going to make their play, but that’s all. Mac had come back two days ago, after a tear-filled goodbye to the team of superheroes who had become his friends during the time he’s spent working at their compound. Now they’re ready to wait for the outcome – whatever that may turn out to be. Desi and Mac step into the room and take a seat.

“Did you ever think we’d be here the first time we met?” Mac asks into the silence and Desi raises an eyebrow at him.

“Mac, the first time we met I thought you were a self-important California boy with no sense of style and even less sense of self-preservation.” Mac interrupts her.

“What’s wrong with the way I dress? You’ve been going on about that almost as long as I’ve know you?” She grins at him.

“Mac – _no one_ has that many plaid shirts.”

“I do.”

“My point exactly.”

They grin at each other and Mac is grateful that he doesn’t have to do this alone. He reaches beneath his shirt and takes out Jack’s tags, his silent companion through the last five years.

If this works, if the Avengers manage to bring everyone back.

He will see Jack again in just a few short _hours, minutes, seconds._

Mac isn’t quite sure he’s ready for that.

“Mac?” Desi asks a little hesitantly. He looks up from the tags in his hands and raises his eyebrows questioningly.

“You and Jack – I never asked, but were you two…?” She doesn’t have to finish the sentence, Mac understands her anyway. He clears his throat.

“No, we weren’t.”

“But you wanted to.”

Mac frowns. “I…”

“You remember what you told me when Jill and I first started dancing around each other? About not letting second chances pass you by?” Mac nods, not trusting himself to speak right then.

“Maybe you should think about that once they’re back.” Desi shrugs. “Just saying.”

Mac looks back at the tags and remembers the way Jack smiled at him, the last time they were all together in this room, the way his eyes crinkled and his low, rough chuckle sent shivers through Mac’s body.

The way Jack always looked at him when he thought no one could see, and it’s possible that Mac may have been an idiot about this.

_“At some point you gotta stop gathering data, hoss, and take a leap of faith – I’ll catch you.”_

Mac clears his throat. “I – I’ll think about it.”

…

_Jack follows Mac into the War Room where the rest of the team is already waiting for them. The briefing is a mix of their usual banter and Matty’s admonishing glare. Mac laughs at something Riley says, Bozer grinning mockingly in the background and Jack tries not to be too obvious about the way he’s staring at his partner._

_Mac is always at his most beautiful when he’s happy, which is why Jack has long since resolved to make him as happy as possible, forever Mac’s silent shadow, watching while his partner takes on the world and wins._

_“Are you listening to me, Dalton?” Matty’s voice is caught somewhere between anger and exasperation, her usual when dealing with them, but there’s an undercurrent of fondness there that means she’s trying very hard not to be drawn into their little bubble of lets-not-be-professional-spies-today._

_Matty loves them._

_“Awww, come on boss-lady. Give the team a break – we just brought in the leader of that new terrorist cell last week.”_

_“Jack?” Riley’s trembling voice interrupts their banter. Jack is immediately alert in a way he normally reserves for the field, but there’s no visible threat in the room._

_Riley is just staring at her hands in horror and for a moment, Jack doesn’t realize what she’s looking at and then her hands are just – gone._

_Jack tries to reach her, but Bozer is directly next to her, trying to grab Riley’s shoulder which bursts into a cloud of ash under his hands._

_Jack chokes, trying to move, but he can’t, and then..._

_“Jack!” He manages to turn around, to turn to Mac who looks at him with fear in his eyes. Mac takes a step forward, caught in a movement as if to grab Jack, blue eyes wide and endless._

_Jack blinks._

_Five years pass._

_He opens his eyes._

_“Mac?”_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After everything is said and done, Mac has his family back, gets hugged a lot, and finally figures out this thing between himself and Jack. It's about time, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it folks. I might add a time stamp down the road, but for now it's done. Thank you so much for sticking with this story even though I've been reliably informed that I ripped out some hearts and ground them to dust. I hope this chapter makes up for it.
> 
> Ahem, please note the change in rating. I didn't expect to write smut for it, but sometimes the smut just writes itself. If you don't want to read the naughty stuff, it starts halfway through Jack's second pov and ends when Mac's pov begins.
> 
> Also, no offense to Mac's Ikea lamp. I own that lamp myself, but it is kind of dorky - in a stylish way, but still.
> 
> As always, self-betaed. All mistakes are my own.

_Jack opens his eyes._

_“Mac?”_

_..._

_Jack_

Jack breathes. His partner is staring at him, eyes wide and apprehensive, almost vibrating with a strange kind of tension, and Jack doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s pretty sure Mac wasn’t wearing that shirt five seconds ago. He closes his eyes, trying to stave off an onset of vertigo, trying to…

“What the hell just happened?” Bozer asks and Jack turns around to where Bozer is still standing next to Riley, who looks at her hands as if she can’t believe they’re actually there.

_Riley is just staring at her hands in horror and for a moment, Jack doesn’t realize what she’s looking at and then her hands are just – gone._

The memories hit Jack like a freight train, watching as half of the people he considers family turn to dust before his eyes, watching the horror on Mac’s face and then – _nothing_.

“What’s going on?” Matty asks into the silence of the room. Jack turns back to his partner who takes a hesitant step towards Jack, hand reaching out, mirroring the position he’d been in just moments, _hours, years_ before.

“You died,” Mac says, something undefinable in his voice that Jack wants to erase immediately because it speaks of a heartbreak he doesn’t understand yet.

“I…I don’t know how to explain this without sounding crazy, Jack, but…you died – _all_ of you.” Mac closes his eyes and rubs a hand over his face. Jack steps closer to his partner, still not understanding, but more than ready to be whatever Mac needs right now.

“Five years ago,” someone interrupts and Jack turns towards the voice, cursing himself for not noticing that there’s someone else in the room with them, aside from the team. The speaker is a woman he hasn’t seen in years, and she’s just about the last person Jack would have expected anywhere close to LA.

“Who are you?” Matty asks, stepping forward. Jack moves in front of Mac almost without thought. It’s not that he thinks Desi is a danger to them, it’s just that he’s got no fucking clue what’s going on, and in moments like these Jack mostly defaults to his first instinct – protecting Mac.

“And how did you get in here?” Riley adds, raising a hand to grab Bozer’s arm. She doesn’t do anything else, and Jack realizes she’s trying to reassure herself that they’re really here. That there’s something to hold on to, something that won’t turn to a cloud of dust in the next few seconds.

“Guys – it’s alright,” Mac tells them and slips past Jack, walking towards Desi with determined steps. Jack resists the urge to draw him back; right now Mac is the one with the answers and Jack trusts his partner. If he thinks that Desi should be at the Phoenix then Jack thinks Desi should be at the Phoenix.

Possibly, that made a little more sense in Jack’s head.

Mac turns to them. “This is Desiree Nguyen. She’s been working with me for the past year and a half.”

“That’s not possible, Mac. I don’t know what’s going on right now, but five minutes ago I was briefing all of you on your next mission,” Matty tells them, defaulting to Director-mode and, strangely enough, it’s Mac’s reaction that convinces Jack that something fundamental has shifted in this room. Mac is wearing a different shirt – and different pants, too, if he thinks about it, Desi’s presence could somehow be explained as well, but the way Mac doesn’t immediately defer to Matty is…

Is frightening, that’s what it is.

Jack takes a deep breath and forces himself to calm down, drawing on every bit of training he has to clear his head. They’re all in this together, Mac is alive, the team is alive, and whatever happened, they can get through this.

“What happened, Mac?” He asks his partner and fights not to smile at the way Mac turns to him with relief in his eyes. Bozer wants to say something, clearly not happy with the way things are going, but Jack silences him with a warning look. “I think we all need to calm down and listen to what Mac wants to tell us.”

Mac smiles at him gratefully and walks over to the screen in the front of the room.

“I really don’t want to show you this, but Desi and I thought it might clear some things up – stuff that’s pretty hard to explain without visual aids. This is the surveillance footage of this room…from five years ago.”

And for the next few minutes Jack and the team have a front row seat to the very real horror movie that apparently took place in this room, watching as one by one the people on screen turn into literal clouds of dust, until Mac is the only one left standing.

Mac closes the file. “I’ll spare you the aftermath. Needless to say I wasn’t exactly at my best right then.”

“Mac…” Riley’s voice is a whisper in the room, she sounds close to tears.

“You said this happened five years ago…how are we here now if we all died then?” Bozer asks, eyes wide with disbelief, and Jack watches a slow smile spread over Desi’s face. It’s her real smile – something Jack didn’t think he’d ever see again after their last meeting.

“You’re here because boy wonder over there helped save the world,” she says, teasingly, but there’s a kind of gravity in her voice that belies the light-heartedness of it. Whatever happened, Mac apparently _did_ help save the world, and that’s something that finally makes sense to Jack.

“It wasn’t really me, Desi,” Mac protests, a bit of the tension seeping out of his frame. Jack steps closer to him, placing a hand on Mac’s arm, almost afraid to touch the other man so soon after witnessing half the people in this room turn to ash.

“I don’t know, hoss. Of all the things I’ve heard today, that’s the one I’m gonna believe. Savin’ the world sounds exactly like your shtick.” Mac forces out a laugh that sounds more like a sob, and when he turns to Jack there are tears in his eyes.

“Jack?”

“Yeah, buddy?” His partner smiles at him, stepping closer.

“I’m going to hug you know,” Mac announces and throws himself into Jack’s arms with enough force, Jack barely manages to close his arms around him without both of them toppling over. The kid clings to him, fingers grabbing the back of Jack’s shirt, tears seeping into the fabric at his throat. Jack holds him through it, realizing without being told that for Mac to show this kind of weakness in front of other people, whatever happened had to be much worse then what Jack’s imagining right now.

 Jack holds on.

…

_Matty_

After Mac throws himself into Jack’s arms, it isn’t long before Bozer and Riley follow, and the team ends up in a slightly awkward four-way hug, desperately clinging to each other. Matty gets her own hug afterwards. She opens her arms when Mac looks at her questioningly, and doesn’t quite manage to hold back the tears when the hug lasts longer than any she’s received from Mac before.

Before they all died on him, apparently.

Matty listens with increasing horror as Mac tells them a story that’s almost too fantastical to believe, voice nearly breaking as he recounts from memory. He tells them about Thanos’ attack (Aliens haven’t exactly been news ever since New York, but this new reality, where gods and monsters are equally real and terrifying has suddenly gained a whole new dimension of existential terror.), about the aftermath, suddenly finding himself in charge with only Hunter as backup. Matty watches as Mac’s gaze never strays far from Jack who keeps touching Mac, as if to reassure himself that the other man is tangible and _real_.

After watching herself turn to dust just minutes earlier, Matty can understand that urge.

Mac’s voice begins to stumble when he tries to explain the years in between, his years on the East Coast, and he fixes her with a stare while telling them about his meeting with Agent Carter.

She has a very bad feeling about this. If Mac really was the most senior agent left, then he had access to every confidential information in the Phoenix files, which means he found out about James MacGyver without any kind of emotional support, without any of them there to soften the blow. If Mac is in charge now, that means that somewhere in Washington DC a very confused Oversight is currently trying to find out what the hell is going on.

“Mac – you don’t need to tell us everything now. I’m pretty sure I speak for all of us when I say that we could really use a break,” Matty tells him. Mac looks relieved, but conflicted, and she’s once again reminded that this man is not the same agent she remembers. He’s been doing her job for the past year and a half, and Matty can see the weight he’s been carrying.

Her job was stressful in a world before Thanos, she can’t even imagine the kind of hell he must have been living in for the past five years.

“It’s a good idea,” Desiree Nguyen says quietly from her spot next to Mac before throwing Matty a knowing glance. “But there’s something we still have to talk about.” Mac turns to Desi, slightly, and nods without disengaging himself from the hold Jack still has on him. He looks at Matty and there’s something in his eyes that’s so incredibly painful, she has to swallow twice or risk starting to cry.

“Oversight.” Mac’s voice is devoid of all emotions except a bone-deep weariness, and Matty wants to spare him this, wants to find Jim and yell at him. _This is what your secrets have done your son._  

“What about the dude?” Jack asks, tightening the hold he has on Mac’s arm. “Didn’t he get dusted? I mean, you’re basically doing his job, ain’t ya?” Jack raises an eyebrow and Mac flinches, almost imperceptibly, but Jack, apparently still tuned in to his partner despite missing five years, notices anyway.

“Hey, hey, Mac. Come on.” Jack uses his hand on Mac’s arm to draw him closer. “What did I say? What’s going on?”

“Jack-“ Desi steps closer, but whatever she sees in Jack’s eyes stops her.

“It’s alright Jack,” Mac almost whispers before clearing his throat and turning back to the rest of the team.

“Oversight was- _is_ my Dad.” Matty closes her eyes while the rest of the team react to that little piece of information. She’d always hoped to be there when Mac found out about it, and it had never been an if, because he was just too smart not to put the clues together that she’d left him, but…

“What the hell?” Jack asks looking to her, clearly expecting Matty to say something.

Riley frowns. “But why did he leave you all those clues if he was that close anyway?” Bozer nods in agreement and Mac chuckles wrily.

“It wasn’t my Dad leaving those clues, was it?” He looks at her while the others slowly realize the implications of his statement.

“You did,” Bozer states and Matty nods in response, not trusting herself to speak right then. She looks at Mac, trying to convey how sorry she is that she couldn’t tell him directly.

“Mac I-“

“It’s alright. I know why you couldn’t tell me Matty, and I’m grateful that you tried to give me what I needed to find him anyway.” He smiles at her, but there’s a lot he doesn’t say, the fact that his father is alive somewhere, and will be contacting them sooner or later must be weighing on him, but there will be time for her to deal with Oversight, Matty is going to make the time.

“Ah, guys?” Bozer hesitantly raises a hand. “Sooo, not to be callous or anything, but since we’ve been dead for the past five years – do we still have a job…or a place to sleep? Just…what’s going to happen now?” Mac grins at him, making him look like the (almost) carefree young twenty-something he’d been the last time they were all together in this room.

Matty isn’t sure she will ever get used to this new Mac, this man who leads the Phoenix Foundation and carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Yeah – about that Boze. Desi kind of moved into your room?” Bozer’s face falls, but Mac is still grinning. “Don’t worry. You can have the guest room for now and almost all your stuff is still in storage. I couldn’t actually bring myself to get rid of anything.” He huffs self-deprecatingly and looks at his fingers, twisting them together. Jack grabs a paperclip from the bowl that’s still (again) on the table and presses it into Mac’s hands. Mac stills and looks at Jack’s hands over his. There’s a strange kind of intimacy in the moment, and Matty almost averts her eyes, but the spell is broken when Desi interrupts.

“That goes for the rest of you, too. Your things are in storage as well, and we’ve prepared rooms here at the Phoenix until we can sort out your living arrangements.” Desi smiles a gentle smile at Mac and Jack, and Matty wants to find out who this woman is. Mac clearly trusts her, and Jack knows her, too, but Matty’s never done well with being out of the loop. She wants to know everything there is to know about Desiree Nguyen and she wants to know it yesterday.

She supresses the urge to ask because Matty is pretty sure it’s her brain’s way of compensating for the loss of control that follows having been dead and out of the loop for the past five years. Still, she reminds herself to at least try to find out where Mac found her and what her connection to Jack is. Being dead is no excuse for sloppiness.

“Hey boss,” Michael Hunter’s voice interrupts them. He’s looking at them incredulously and there are tear tracks on his face.

“You know I almost thought it was a fluke when Alvarez appeared right in front of me, but clearly there’s something else going on.” His gaze wanders over the room and the people in it before settling on Mac. “You really could have warned us, boss.” Hunter grins self-deprecatingly and shakes his head. “Course – not sure I would have believed you.”

“I’m sorry, Michael. I wasn’t even sure it would _work_ , so we decided to be careful,” Mac says motioning towards Desi and himself.

“That's why we prepared all those rooms then?” Mac nods.

“Yeah, and I’d appreciate if you could get everyone into one of the bigger conference rooms?” He looks at Desi who holds up two fingers. “Level too – yeah, that’s the biggest one we have.”

Hunter nods. “Gotcha boss. Getting right on it and – it’s really good to see you,” he addresses the rest of them before leaving with a spring in his step. Matty thinks of the implications of roughly four billion people coming back to life all in the same moment and shudders. Right know they need to focus on the Phoenix, on helping Mac with navigating the logistical nightmare right at home.

Also, she’s really, really hungry. Matty doesn’t think it’s because she hasn’t eaten in five years, but right now it sure feels like it.

…

_Bozer_

Mac repeats his story in the conference room on level two. This time his voice is steady and sure – the leader he became while they weren’t there to watch. Bozer doesn’t really follow all of the immediate logistics; mostly he and Riley just cling to each other, trying not to cry when thinking about all that Mac must have endured.

Bozer watches his best friend, trying to find traces of the carefree genius he remembers, but the Mac who delegates tasks and people, effortlessly dealing with the aftermath of changing the world, is a far cry from Bozer’s best friend. That realization leaves him feeling cold, and Bozer tries not to think about it too hard because if he does, he’s going to start crying, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stop again.

When everything is said and done, Mac takes them home – even Matty. There are rooms for them at the Phoenix, but it’s clear that none of them are looking forward to spending the night away from the others.

The look in Mac’s eyes, as he haltingly offers his house for the night, is what decides it in the end. There’s something desperate there, like he can’t quite believe that they’re actually _real_ , and whatever concerns they might have left about invading Mac’s space fly right out of the window.

They go ~~home~~ to Mac’s house. Bozer has to remind himself that five years have passed since he’s lived in this house, because it almost looks exactly the same. There’s still the dorky Ikea lamp above the front door; the polar bear still greets them when they make their way inside. Bozer spots a few more plants around the living room, but the kitchen hasn’t changed a bit – leaky fridge included.

“So-“ Mac begins, hands wringing nervously. It’s a far cry from the competent leader they witnessed earlier, but Mac is probably just as lost as the rest of them. He’s spent five years moving on from their deaths and, from what Bozer understands, didn’t actually expect them to come back for most of that time. Mac hasn’t told them much about _how_ they were brought back, only that it involved Tony Stark and the Avengers, and Bozer thinks that Mac is still trying to make himself believe that he isn’t dreaming all of this up in a desperate attempt to get them back.

What do you say to the people who died five years ago and left you behind?

“Hey,” Jack says, voice almost too low for Bozer to understand. Jack hasn’t moved far from Mac’s side ever since their desperate hug in the War Room. He follows Mac around with his eyes, waiting for something that Bozer doesn’t understand, but it’s clear that Jack still _gets_ Mac in that unique way he’s always had.

There may be five years of distance between them now, but Jack looks at Mac with _understanding_ in his eyes, where Bozer only feels confused, and he doesn’t really know what to do with that.

Jack places a hand on Mac’s arm, smiling gently. “You don’t have to do this alone, hoss.” Mac smiles back, eyes slightly watery.

“I know, Jack. I’m just-“ He looks at Desi who nods at him and turns to address the team. “I’ll make up the guest bedroom. I’ve got some space in my room, too.” She looks at Bozer, looking uncertain, and he suddenly understands that she’s just as unsure of her place in this brave new world as the rest of them.

A few hours ago, Bozer had to push down a serious case of jealousy, realizing that Mac let someone else have Bozer’s space in his life and his house, but now he feels sympathy for her, this woman who became part of Mac’s life, who became his _friend_ while they were dead.

He’s grateful, too, because it’s clear she watched Mac’s back when they couldn’t, and Bozer has spent half his life looking at the people following Mac home and silently asking one question:

_Will you help me keep him safe?_

“Can’t we just – sleep here?” Riley asks hesitantly. “I don’t think I can sleep alone tonight.” She looks at them almost pleadingly.

“Like that sleepover you had when you were twelve, Riles?” Jack grins at her and she nods. “Might be fun.” He turns to the rest of them. “What do you say guys? I’m sure Mac and Desi have some sleeping bags and an air mattress or two around we can use.” He wiggles his eyebrows and Bozer is reminded why Jack has always been so good at cheering people up. He’s a master at diverting attention from the elephant in the room, and right now, that’s exactly what they need.

“I’m taking the couch, Dalton,” Matty states, daring anyone to contradict her. “I’m too old to be sleeping on the ground."

Jack looks like he wants to protest for all but a second, but it’s clear that any objections he might have are half-hearted at best.

“The sleeping bags are still in the closet in the guest room,” Mac says and looks at Jack. “Would you mind getting them?” Jack nods and wraps an arm around Riley’s shoulder.

“Come on, Riley-girl. Help an old man carry some sleeping bags.” She rolls her eyes, but snuggles closer, and lets herself be pulled along.

Mac looks at Bozer. “The air mattresses are in the shed outside. Want to help me get them?” Bozer doesn’t need to be asked twice. He nods and follows Mac outside.

The shed is still as dark and dusty as it had been five years ago, but it got a new coat of paint at some point. Mac starts rummaging through the boxes, pulling out a truly odd combination of things, and Bozer is strangely glad that at least Mac’s somewhat haphazard approach to long-term storage hasn’t changed much.

Bozer is trying to think of something to say while Mac is busy handing him things, to break this uncomfortable silence between them that had never been there before, when Mac beats him to it.

“I missed you, you know.” Mac says apropos of nothing, not looking at Bozer. He sounds almost distracted, but Bozer knows that tone of voice. He’s trying not to let his emotions get the better of him.

“Mac-“

“At first I was in shock, spent the first few months just _surviving_ , but then-“ He hands Bozer an old toaster right after a hose pipe, and if he wasn’t choked up with emotions right now, he’d be making fun of Mac for it.

Mac stills, hand resting on an unearthed air mattress. “The worst thing was the silence you know.” He turns to Bozer. “I’d be making coffee or something to eat, and I’d turn around at the slightest sound, thinking you just wandered in, to tell you about my day.” There’s a tear escaping from Mac’s eye and Bozer only barely resists the urge to wipe it away.

He doesn’t want to interrupt Mac, doesn’t want to break the spell.

“And then I’d remember that you weren’t there anymore Boze and you have no idea what that did to me.” Bozer throws away the toaster he’s still been clutching between his hands, and it lands somewhere in the back with a clank, but Bozer doesn’t care. He throws his arms around Mac and yanks him into a crushing hug, the force throwing them back against the wall.

It’s late, they’re sitting in a wooden shed in what used to be their garden, but is only Mac’s now, clutching at each other, while Mac’s tears wet Bozer's skin.

He finally starts crying, too.

They’re probably going to be alright.

…

 _Riley_

Riley is the first to wake up. She carefully detangles herself from Bozer, who has migrated closer during the night and snores softly into his sleeping bag. She gets up and stretches in the early morning light, letting her gaze wander across the other occupants in the room.

Matty is sleeping on the couch, breathing deep and even. Desi had initially protested at being included in their sleeping arrangement, and only relented after talking to Mac. Riley hadn’t been privy to the conversation, but whatever he’d said to her had done the trick. She’d taken the space closest to the kitchen, not far from Riley herself actually.

She likes what she’s seen of Desi so far. Don’t get her wrong, Riley likes her boys, loves them really, but sometimes she just wants to talk to a woman so badly, she’s ready to scream. Matty doesn’t really count, because Matty is more of a team Mom than a confidante, and that’s one of the reasons Riley had missed Sam desperately after she returned to Australia.

Mac and Jack are sleeping next to each other, scratch that, they’re sleeping _on top_ of each other, and Riley really wants to watch their reactions when they realize it – except she won’t because Mac was close to shattering yesterday, and only Jack’s steady presence kept him together.

Right now, Jack is wrapped around Mac like a clingy, overprotective octopus, and Riley always knew that Mac is secretly a little spoon. They’re both still sleeping, like the rest of the team. Riley grabs one of the blankets they’d put on the floor last night in order to make their little nest as cozy as possible, and silently makes her way outside, stepping onto the wooden back for the first time in five years.

It feels like yesterday.

She wraps the blanket around herself and sits down in front of the unlit fire pit. Riley remembers the last time they’d all sat here together, remembers Jack’s crooked grin, and Matty’s gentle, proud smile, and remembers Mac laughing while Bozer teased him about his inability to cook.

Riley wants to cry.

“Hey, you’re up early,” Mac says, walking onto the deck. He sits down next to her, wearing a t-shirt and boxers, and Riley imagines that he’s probably cold in the early morning chill. She offers him half of her blanket.

“Thanks.” He wraps the blanket around his shoulder, moving closer to her. Mac stares at the skyline, Riley can’t even _begin_ to imagine what he’s thinking about.  

“Your Mom was at home when Thanos attacked,” Mac begins, not looking at her. “I’m having a few people look into it, they’re going to call as soon as they make contact with her.”

“Thank you,” Riley says, and while she wants to see her mother, she finds herself unable to even contemplate the thought right now. Normally Riley likes to face her problems head-on, but ever since taking her first breath in the War Room yesterday, her head feels like she’s caught in a fog, unable to accept this new reality she found herself in.

She pushes the thought away and leans her head against Mac’s shoulder, he wraps an arm around her. If there’s one thing she’s always been able to count on, it’s that Mac will lend her his strength willingly when she struggles to be strong on her own.

Above all, he’s taught her that it’s okay to need help sometimes, and Riley’s glad that hasn’t changed.

“You know-,” she begins, “you sound a bit like Matty now.” He raises an eyebrow and throws her a doubtful look.

“No, really,” Riley insists. _“I’m having a few people look into it?”_ She quotes at him. “That’s Matty speak, right there.” Mac chuckles.

“I didn’t even realize.”

“It’s a good thing, Mac,” She blurts out before her courage leaves her. “That you changed – _moved on_.” Mac stiffens next to her.

“Riley-“

“No, listen please,” Riley insists because now that she’s started, she realizes that she needs to tell him this and, what’s even more important, that Mac needs to _hear_ this.

“When I think about it, about the last five years, I can’t even imagine something like that happening, but if we’d come back and you hadn’t changed at all-“ She trails off, feeling Mac trembling beside her, but there’s something that she still needs to add.

“Mourning changes people, Mac. And that’s a good thing. I think if we’d come back and you hadn’t changed at all, I think that would have been terrible.” She finally dares to look at him. Mac is leaning forward, hands folded together, not looking at her.

“I’m sorry, Mac. I don’t think I’m explaining this very well.” But Mac shakes his head and when he looks up, there’s a smile on his face.

“Do you have any idea how much I missed you?”

“Mac-“

“Sometimes I’d wake up at night and couldn’t _breathe_ with how much I wanted to talk to you, or Bozer, or _Jack,”_ His voice breaks on the last name, but he’s still smiling even though talking about this obviously hurts him, and Riley just wants to take away that hurt and hug him.

She can’t take away the hurt, but she _can_ give him a hug.

“Come here,” Riley says and Mac folds into her arms, gratefully, resting his head against her shoulder.

“You’re not alone anymore, Mac. I know you have Desi, but now you’ve got us back, too. Let us carry some of the weight,” She tells him and feels him nod against her shoulder.

Riley holds him as long as he needs her to. They have time now.

…

_Jack_

Jack relearns his partner step by step.

Mac is different now, but it doesn’t take long for Jack to realize that he’s still the same in all the ways that count. He’s become a leader, leading the Phoenix Foundation with confidence, and Jack can see the pride in Matty’s eyes whenever Mac says or does something that proves how well he’s doing in his new job. There’s a kind of sadness in her, too. The same longing Jack feels for the easier days before they all went and got killed on the same day.

It’s not their fault, but sometimes Jack can’t help and feel guilty about that, about leaving Mac behind to fend on his own.

Except, he wasn’t quite on his own, was he? Jack finds Desi in the gym a few days after their miraculous return from the dead. He’s been shadowing Mac for most of these days, trying to be whatever he needs right now. Jack might not have lived through the last five years, but he recognized the look in Mac’s eyes almost instantly: A bad case of survivor’s guilt paired with a hefty dose of PTSD. Jack has seen that look more than once when he looked into the mirror, and seeing the reflection in Mac’s eyes now, hurts in ways he hadn’t thought himself capable of anymore.

Jack doesn’t bargain with the gods, he’s always been too pragmatic, preferring to accept situations for what they are instead of what they could be, changing the present instead of longing for what might have been.

But if he could exchange places with Mac, to spare him the pain he’s lived with for the past five year?

Jack would do it in a heartbeat.

Desi is sitting on a bench, staring at something in the distance. When he approaches her, she smiles at him.

“Jack. Didn’t expect you here.” He sits down next to her.

“Could say the same about you,” Jack says.

Desi winces. “Ouch. Right where it hurts, but I guess I deserved that after the last time we talked.”

“Well – I wouldn’t exactly call it talking.” And it hadn’t been. Their last talk had involved a lot of yelling on Desi’s side, and Jack trying to get through to her, but she’d been in a lot of pain, physically and emotionally, and Jack hadn’t been able to reach her.

“I’m sorry Des,” Jack continues, feeling contrite, “You didn’t deserve that. I’m just-“

“All a bit much?” Jack chuckles roughly.

“Yeah. I’m trying to help Mac as best as I can, but-“

Desi nods thoughtfully. “You know – when your boy first showed up at my airfield, I didn’t really understand what you saw in him. I mean, there was this California golden boy, smiling like he was about to offer me the opportunity of a lifetime and I just… _God_ , I wanted to punch him so _badly_.”

“I know that feeling,” Jack interrupts.

“What?”

“Remind me to tell you about our first meeting sometime.” Desi frowns at him.

“O- _kay_? Anyway, where was I? Right. I was all prepared to hear him out and send him away without taking him up on whatever he was about to offer, but-“ She shakes her head as if she still can’t quite believe it herself.

“He gave me something that I didn’t expect, something that I thought I lost even before Thanos.”

“What’s that?”

Desi takes a shaky breath. “He gave me _hope_.” Jack smiles.

“Yeah, he’s good at that.” Here they are, two world weary soldiers, both dragged back to life by a genius kid with a bright smile and the hair of a Golden Retriever.

“So I went with him, to LA, and then I realized that’s what he _does_. There are so many people here, like Hunter and Jill, who had been _waiting_ for the hope he gave them, but I realized something else, too, Jack. I realized that Mac kept none of that hope for himself. He gave, and gave, and gave when we rebuilt the Phoenix, but the whole time, all I saw in him was that bone-deep weariness we both know all too well.”

She throws him a glance. “Until he hugged you in the War Room. Jack – that was the first time I could see that hope in his eyes, too.”

“Des-“ Jack doesn’t really know what to say to her. He’s fighting not to start crying because he likely won’t be able to stop anytime soon, and he didn’t come in here to cry all over Desi.

“You give him hope just by being there for him, Jack. Stop trying so hard. The fact that you’re _here_ -“ She sniffs a bit and laughs shakily. “That’s already more than Mac thought he’d ever get again. _You’re_ enough, Jack.”

“Yeah, I – thank you.”

“He’s in love with you. You know?” Desi adds and Jack’s pretty sure he just stepped into a different reality.

“Excuse me – what?” He can’t have heard that right – there’s just _no_ way.

“Took me a while to realize it, and I wasn’t going to say anything, but-“ She gets up and looks at him, a gentle smile on her face.

“You’re in love with him, too. And I’m tired of people around me trying to waste their second chances. Mac helped me with my relationship, so now I’m helping him with this.” Desi grins at the look on his face.

“Get moving, Dalton. You don’t find a guy like that in every century.” She turns around and saunters towards the exit, clearly pleased with the outcome, but not before leaving Jack with one last parting shot.

“Also, I’m pretty sure Mac hasn’t gotten laid since we had sex that one time.”

…

Jack goes back to Mac’s house. It’s still currently his house, too. Riley and Bozer have taken over one of the rooms at the Phoenix, needing some space of their own, but still unwilling to be completely alone, so Jack’s installed in the guest room at Mac’s, and whenever he starts talking about finding an apartment again, Mac gets that vaguely panicky look in his eyes that makes him drop the topic immediately every single time.

Right now Jack needs to think. He’s been in love with Mac for a while now. Jack doesn’t actually know how long exactly, but he remembers vividly, the ice that gripped his heart when Mac had been shot, dropped into Lake Como, and he suddenly had to face the fact that he was a lot more attached to Mac than he’d ever admitted to himself – he didn’t just love Mac, he was _in love_ with him.

He hadn’t panicked, not then, too busy trying to save Mac. Jack is as equal opportunity in his choice of lovers as he is in many other aspects of his life, and he’s long since abandoned the urge to hide behind a front of heterosexuality like he’d done in his younger years.

Jack is who he is and if anyone has a problem with that they can take it up with his fists.

But Mac is – Mac is so much more precious to Jack than any lover he’s had during their partnership. He'd never once contemplated the possibility that Mac might actually feel the same way about Jack that Jack feels about him.

He remembers meeting the kid for the first time (Jack should probably stop calling Mac kid, he’s turning thirty three this year, for God’s sake.), remembers meeting this golden haired boy, too smart for his own good and too pretty by half.

There hadn’t been any attraction then. Protectiveness, yes, after the initial hostility had passed, but Mac had simply been too young for Jack to look at him that way – no matter how pretty he'd been.

But Mac isn’t that young anymore, is he?

“Jack?” Mac’s voice as he walks into the kitchen pulls him out of the memories. “Everything alright? You looked like you were miles away.”

Jack smiles. “Naw, everything’s fine, don’t you worry about me.”

Mac raises an eyebrow, clearly doubting Jack’s honesty, but doesn’t say anything else. Mac’s hair is still wet from the shower he's just taken, and for some reason Jack can barely resist the urge to run his hand through the wet strands.

“You want a beer?” Mac asks. “I could use a drink after arguing with that senator today.”

He shakes his head and Mac shrugs, wandering over to the fridge.

Jack’s hand on his arm stops him.

“Jack?”

_I'm really going to do this in the goddamn kitchen, am I?  
_

“Got a question for you, bud.” Jack says, pretty sure his heart is about to burst out of his chest with how anxious he’s feeling right then.

“What is it?” Mac asks, but Jack feels his words desert him. There’s a strange ringing in his head, and he feels like he’s about to step off a cliff without knowing what lies beneath.

Jack slides his hand up, over Mac’s shoulder, his throat, tracing his skin with the pads of his fingers until he can cup Mac’s cheek, and whatever Mac sees in his eyes must be enough because there’s a dawning look of realization spreading across his face.

He places a hand above Jack’s.

“Really?” He asks and Jack nods, stepping closer. “Only if you want, Mac.”

Mac breathes shakily and it’s almost a laugh, a happy one. “Oh I want – I want so goddamn much, you have no idea.”

Jack chuckles. “Oh, I think I might have a pretty good idea, darling’.” He draws Mac closer and his partner meets him halfway. Jack kissed him like he’s been dreaming about for so long, he can’t quite remember a time _before_. He goes all in, wrapping his arms around Mac, Jack turns them around and pressed Mac against the counter. Mac’s response is – _enthusiastic_ to say the least. He _yields_ to Jack in a way he hadn’t expected in his wildest dreams.  

He isn’t entirely sure he deserves it, but he doesn’t care right now, too busy exploring Mac’s mouth with his own. Jack gives into the urge he had earlier and buries a hand in Mac’s hair, grabbing just a little too tight, but before he can apologize, Mac makes a sound that conveys more than just approval.

Jack does it again, pressing a leg between Mac’s and the moan he gets in response combined with the friction against his cock is almost enough to make him lose it on the spot. If Jack were twenty years younger…

Thankfully he isn’t. He draws back from Mac, reluctantly, and traces Mac’s lips with his thumb. His partner captures the digit with his lips, impishly grinning at him.

He almost can’t _breathe_ with how much he loves this man.

“Wanna take this to the bedroom?” Jack asks.

“Thought you’d never ask.” Mac grabs his hand and leads the way. They stumble into Mac’s room laughing and happy. Jack’s sight is momentarily gone as Mac throws his shirt at him and he can’t have that. He moves forward and pushes the other man into the sheets, pinning Mac to the bed with the weight of his body.

“Hey, no. Not fair, Mac. You have any idea how long I’ve wanted to unwrap you?”

Mac grins and his hands fall to the side. “Have at it old man.”

“I’ll show you old man,” Jack answers, voice rough and full of anticipation, and proceeds to take Mac apart as meticulously and thoroughly as he can. He start at Mac’s throat, tracing over the birthmark that’s been driving him crazy for _ages_ with his tongue, mouthing at the skin until he’s satisfied his curiosity about the feel and taste of that little patch of skin.

Mac is panting already. Jack grins into his skin.

“That – that all you got?” Mac asks, breathlessly. Jack grins into his skin. He makes his way down, lips ghosting over the bare skin, nipping at every scar, every freckle he can find. He takes one of Mac’s nipples between his teeth and bites down gently.

Mac swears and clutches at Jack’s shoulders.

He doesn’t let up, moving further down until he can hook his fingers into the elastic waistband of Mac’s pants and pull them down his legs slowly. Mac’s cock springs free, hard and leaking.

He isn’t wearing underwear.

How about that?

Jack is going to think about that a lot whenever Mac takes a shower in the future, might possibly jump him a lot then too, now that he’s got permission.

He looks up at his partner, taking in the flushed face and glassy eyes.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” Jack asks and grabs one of Mac’s hands, pressing a kiss into the palm.

“’Bout as much as I love you,” Mac says shakily. “Jack, _please_.” And Jack can’t deny him, could never deny him this. He lets go of Mac’s hand and closes his lips around Mac’s flesh. He sucks gently, pressing his weight down because Mac almost bucks him off at the first touch of Jack’s mouth.

He indulges himself, learning the taste and feel of his partner, mouthing at the skin until Mac is nothing more than a quivering mess, hands twisted in the sheets.

One last lick, catching a drop of precome on his tongue, and Jack moves upwards again. He rests his weight on his forearms, careful not to crush Mac, and brushes a strand of hair out of his partner’s face.

“Hey.” Mac blinks at him, breathing heavily. His hands grab Jack’s shirt, struggling a bit, trying to work his fingers under Jack’s belt.

Mac glares at him, caught between arousal and annoyance. “Off!” He presses up, rubbing himself against Jack, trying to find some friction now that Jack isn’t providing any.

Jack obliges, unable to do anything else really. He gets up, reluctantly disentangling himself from Mac, and removes his clothes while his partner watches hungrily.

“Like what you see?” Jack ask cheekily while his belt goes flying behind him. Mac raises an eyebrow and wraps a hand around himself, lazily stroking his own flesh. Jack struggles with his _socks_ of all things.  

“ _Mac_ -“ He warns, voice shaky, but Mac laughs at him. It’s a joyful sound, not moking Jack, and he can’t find it in him to mind.

“Supplies?” Jack asks before lowering himself down again. Mac indicates the top drawer of the bedside table where Jack finds a few foil wrappers and a half-empty bottle of lube.

He covers Mac with his body, and that first press of skin against skin is _glorious_.

“How do you wanna do this?” Jack asks. He’s perfectly happy either way, but…

Mac wordlessly hands him the bottle of lube and raises his knees. Jack swallows. Alright then. He presses a kiss against Mac’s lips, and pops the cap on the bottle, coating his fingers in the clear liquid. Moving his hand between Mac’s legs, he traces his fingers over the entrance of Mac’s body before pushing in a digit, ready to stop at the slightest hint of discomfort in his partner’s face.

Mac rolls his eyes.

“’M not gonna break, Jack.” Jack chuckles roughly, and adds a second finger, carefully exploring until Mac meets every slight thrust with a movement of his own. Jack adds a third finger and finds Mac’s prostate. The answering moan might possibly be illegal in half the countries Jack’s visited over his long and illustrious career.

When he’s satisfied that Mac is as prepared as possible, he removes his fingers and grabs the foil wrapper. Jack debates himself for all but a second after rolling the condom over his aching flesh, and he turns them over before Mac can do so much as protest.

“What the- _Jack_.” Jack scoots back until he’s resting against the headboard, Mac in his lap.

“I’m an old man, remember? You know my back’s never been the same after Cairo anyway.” He shrugs and grins at his partner.

Mac laughs shakily. “I can’t believe…you _bastard_ ,” He says, but there’s a smile on his face, a little shy maybe, that tells Jack everything he needs to know. Mac raises himself up on his knees a little, just enough for Jack to guide himself to the entrance of his body. The slide down is – he can’t quite find the words to describe it. Mac shakes in his arms, breathing against Jack’s skin, and Jack guides him down until they’re as close as they can get, wrapped around each other, and if Jack feels a tear sliding down his cheek, well, no one ever has to know.

“Move, Jack,” Mac mumbles into Jack’s skin.

“Thought you were doin’ the work here.” Jack grins but starts moving anyway. He wraps an arm around Mac’s middle, and buries the other one in his hair, tugging him close enough, they’re breathing the same air.

“Bastard,” Mac whispers against his lips.

“Open your eyes, Mac.” He does while starting to meet Jack’s movements halfway. “There you are sweetheart.” Jack presses his lips to Mac’s, trying to mirror the rhythm of his thrusts into Mac’s body with his tongue.

Mac digs his fingers into Jack’s shoulder in response. Jack increases the pace of his thrusts, movements growing erratic the closer he gets to the end. He wrenches his mouth away from Mac’s and wraps a hand around Mac’s flesh. A few strokes and he stutters, coming all over Jack’s hand.

Mac drops forward, shaking against Jack through the aftermath of his orgasm. Jack holds him, hands grabbing Mac’s hips, tight enough to bruise, and he’s probably going to feel guilty about that later, but right now all he can do is shove a few more times into his partner’s pliant body and follow him over the edge.

It’s possible he blacks out for a moment.

“Jack?” Mac asks, arms still wrapped around Jack’s shoulders.

Jack stops his hands where he’s been content to stroke them up and down the skin of Mac’s back, high on endorphins.

“Mh?”

“We should really move before we end up stuck together.”

Jack’s hands resume their movement. “Dunno – stuck with you? That doesn’t sound so bad.”

Mac slaps his shoulder half-heartedly. “Ass.”

“Yep,” Jack concedes, still not moving anywhere. “But your ass now.”

Mac chuckles against his skin.

“True.”

They _do_ end up stuck together. Mac doesn’t tell Jack I told you so, but his eyes convey the sentiment well enough.

…

_Mac_

Mac wakes up to Jack snoring softly into his neck, spooning him from behind. He takes a moment to bask in the feeling of his partner just – _there_. If someone had told him a few months ago that he’d be here, now, Mac wouldn’t have been able to believe it. 

He can’t quite believe it _now_. When Jack looked at him in the kitchen yesterday, eyes warm and trusting, trusting Mac to _get_ it…

He isn’t quite sure how he got this lucky, but he doesn’t really care. He has Jack back, he has everyone back, and if it was physically possible to burst with happiness, Mac would be making a pretty big mess in his bedroom right about now. As it stands, there’s another pressing issue he really needs to attend to, so he disengages himself from Jack, careful not to wake the other man, and makes his way to the bathroom. The man he sees in the mirror is a far cry from the man he’s been just half a year ago. There’s something in his eyes that Mac hasn’t seen in way too long.

Mac is _happy_.

He almost forgot how that felt.

Mac returns to the bedroom where Jack is still asleep, breathing deep and even. Mac can’t help but grin, besotted, and hopes that he’ll wake to that sight for the rest of their lives. He grabs a fresh pair of boxers and Jack’s shirt, and makes his way outside to the deck. The morning sun is slowly rising over the city, and Mac wanders over to the railing, soaking up the sight of his home, bathed in a fiery golden glow.

There’s still so much work to be done. Mac has yet to actually contact his father. Matty talked to him on the phone once or twice, but James MacGyver is stuck in DC, being grilled by officials of various government agencies. Coming back to life is different if you’re the former head of an internationally operating clandestine agency apparently, and Matty has only escaped the same fate so far because she adamantly refuses to fly out to the East Coast, citing her need to help Mac with the aftermath of nearly four billion people coming back to life at once.

Mac is more than grateful for her steady presence. He may be the Director right now, but Matty still has years of experience on him, and more than once, it’s been her calming advice that got him through the day.

He doesn’t know if he wants to keep the job actually. Mac knows he’s good at it, and he’s proud of what he and Desi have accomplished, but now he has _options_.

He needs to talk to Desi about it. Mac knows she likes her job, but ever since she and Jill started something serious, Desi’s been hoping for more time at home, and less time abroad. They need to go recruiting, find the agents they’ve had in the field five years ago and bring them home, too. Maybe Mac can work something out with Matty, hand the job back over to her once she’s up to date on operations.

Mac has _options_ now. He doesn’t need to carry it all alone anymore.

The first thing he’s going to do though, after the chaos has settled down and Mac can leave LA for longer than a day without things falling apart, is take Jack down to Texas and his family. Mac’s been in contact with the survivors of the Dalton clan, has spent most holidays at the ranch actually, and he remembers Jack’s tear-filled phone call to his mother the day after everyone had returned from the dead.

Jack is only still in LA for _Mac_ , and Mac is determined to get him to Texas as soon as possible, to get _them_ there as soon as possible because he isn’t letting Jack out of his sight for the foreseeable future if he can help it.

After that, well…Mac has a lot of vacation days he’s never taken. Maybe they’ll go down to Mexico. Just Mac, Jack, white beaches, and the cocktails with the tiny umbrellas that Jack pretends he doesn’t like but secretly does.

They have _time_ now.

Almost silent footsteps alert him to Jack’s approach before he feels two strong arms wrap around him from behind. He leans back into those arms and tilts his head as Jack presses a kiss against Mac’s throat, stubble catching against his skin.

“Mhhh, good morning,” Jack mumbles absent-mindedly, tightening his arms around Mac. 

“Good morning,” Mac answers. He turns around in Jack’s arms and lets Jack kiss him, enjoying the warmth of his body after standing in the morning chill in just his boxers and a shirt.

“That my shirt?” Jack asks in between kisses. Mac grins.

“Minx. ‘S early. Come back to bed?” Mac can only nod in response.

Jack tugs at him and he follows willingly, hoping they’ll have some hours to be lazy today. After all, it’s Sunday.

Behind them, the sun rises over the city.

 

 

 

 


End file.
